Abundant Recompense Copy

I believe it's high time we had a little talk about the elephant in the room. That would be me. This picture is from a month or so ago and I'm pretty sure every part of my body has at least doubled in size since then. We're having a baby! It's all sort of flown by, and then this morning I woke up and was in the third trimester. Here's a synopsis. Trimester 1: Sicker than I remember ever being with any other baby. Nausea and headaches. And somehow we timed it to be right in the thick of canning season again. We should really make a "note to self" somewhere for when we're planning these things. Our garden blessed a lot of our neighbors this year, simply because the thought of looking at one more tomato made me want to vomit violently. And that was after looking at like 5, total. And we had 20 tomato plants this year. We did can a lot of tomato sauce, salsa, peaches, applesauce and green beans despite it all. Anyway, that pretty much sums it up. Sick and ...

Here we go: an update on Leah. She is growing and changing so quickly. It's fun (and sometimes maddening) to see her little personality beginning to emerge. She's turning into quite the girly-girl. She loves dressing up, makeup and jewelry time with Mommy, and taking care of her babies. If we're at the grocery store, or in any other public place, she gets very excited if she sees a baby or a baby carseat and shrieks "baby!" at the top of her lungs. Each time we see the baby. Which is sometimes on every aisle. I like it. Leah insisted on each component of this outfit. Other than the actual pants and shirt she's wearing. She pulled the jammie pants (on her head) and jammie shirt (around her neck) out of her dirty clothes hamper. And the swimsuit (around her arm) and Bryn's coat from last year (which came right after the picture) out of a box marked to go up to the attic. Ain't she fabulous? Feeling pretty stylish after checking herself out in the mirror....

A few things of note here. 1. One morning we woke up and the hot water wouldn't come on in the kitchen. It was the strangest thing. The cold worked just fine, and they're on the same faucet. I scratched my head and went about the day, assuming that it would fix itself. That night when it still hadn't, I began to suspect that something was wrong. Nate wasn't home so I called Brother Grove who confirmed my suspicion that the hot water pipe in the kitchen was, in fact, frozen. Dah! So I called my Dad and a brother in law or two and before long Brother Grove had sounded the alarm and half our ward knew. It's nice to have people. Anyway, Nate got home and I tearfully and angrily told him all about it. He did some sleuthing and figured out where the pipe was located. Right in our brand spankin' new kitchen wall behind our brand spankin' new kitchen cabinet. He and I were both pretty glum as he busted a hole through the wall under the sink. We grimly awaited a dram...

As you may have guessed after reading the title, this week has been the longest one ever. The skies have been gray, thanks to the inversion and it's cold and wet and snowy. And everybody - I mean EVERYBODY in our household has been sick with one thing or another. Or both. Tummy troubles and colds abound at our house and it stinks. And Addison has been home from school all week long. I will now make an attempt to look for a silver lining. In a happy, lively color. 1. Dinner is totally in the crockpot already! YEAH! 2. I have a new project. One that makes me want to stay up late and also neglect the housework. It's a quilt for little Leah's soonish-to-be big-girl bed. 3. Addison is caught up on his homework even though he hasn't been to school at all this week. We rock. 4. Nate is on Amazon. Look up his name. So fancy. 5. The kids re-discovered the books on cd in their room and have been in quiet time for almost an entire hour extra! 6. Yesterday a neighbor came over on h...

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year. It doesn't hurt that it's my birthday, but I especially look forward to the afternoon portion, after all the birthday stuff is over. I love preparing our special dinner with the whole family together in the kitchen. And eating it together. We had Brother Grove over this year to enjoy it with us.  After dinner we got jammies on, frosted a few cookies, an got comfy for my favorite part of the evening - the Christmas story from the scriptures and our family gift exchange by the light of the Christmas tree. It's such a cozy, special time. The story went pretty well this year. The kids took turns putting up our nativity blocks as they heard them mentioned in the reading. Then we exchanged gifts. We drew names this year, so each person got a gift for one other person in the family. I really enjoyed watching Bryn prepare for it. She worked like a dog doing "quarter jobs" to save up enough to buy a doll for Leah that she'd...

Happy New Year everybody! I am looking forward to finishing up last year's blogging soon and starting in on 2014. It seems like high time to do a good old "family update" post. Life seems to have tripled in speed over the past month or so and blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit. But I hope we'll soon get back into a good routine and things can return to normal. Or as normal as they ever are, I suppose. So here's some more Christmastime cuteness to start the ball rolling. Twinners. I think they're so cute. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the matching shirts. This picture completely cracks me up. We took about 25 trying to get a decent one, and believe me when I say, this is the best it got. This is of the Sunday before Christmas. I try to take one of these each year because I think our kids are so stinkin' cute in their Christmas get-up. I suppose the more kids you have, the more complicated that gets. And don't mind the piles of junk in the corners...